


Like Flying

by imaginary_golux



Series: These Precious Fluffballs [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Multi, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey doesn't know how to swim. Poe is more than happy to teach her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Flying

Rey dips a toe into the water and gives Poe a _deeply_ suspicious look. “It’s _cold_ ,” she says.

“It feels nice once you’re in, I promise,” Poe says patiently. He’s standing waist-deep in one of the nicer lakes on a nameless planet a short hop from D’Qar base, watching Rey encounter the idea of swimming. Finn, who can swim but doesn’t particularly enjoy it, is sunbathing and watching the show.

“It’s _green_. Water’s not good when it’s green,” she says, still dubious.

“Water weeds,” Poe explains. “I wouldn’t drink it, but playing in it won’t do you any harm.”

“And there’s nothing dangerous in there?”

“Just minnows, mostly,” Poe says, looking down at the handful of small fish investigating his legs. One of them tries to bite one of his toes. It tickles.

“How big is a minnow?” Rey asks, worried. Poe holds up his fingers a few centimeters apart, and she relaxes. “Oh, that’s alright.”

“C’mon,” Poe urges her. “I won’t let you get in out of your depth, and I think you’ll like it.”

Rey sighs, looking very put-upon, but she also steps down into the water and wades out, slowly, until she’s standing next to Poe. “You’re right,” she says. “It does feel nicer once I’m in.”

“Told you,” Poe grins. “Crouch down a bit – get wet all over. Head too, if you don’t mind going under.”

The look Rey gives him is half ‘challenge accepted’ and half ‘fuck no,’ but she crouches down when he does, and after a moment’s thought she closes her eyes and holds her nose and ducks her head under, coming up dripping and scowling.

“Now I’m wet and _cold_ ,” she says indignantly. “Now what?”

“Now give me your hands,” Poe says. She does, which is actually incredibly trusting of her – she doesn’t like touching people, that Poe’s noticed, and she’s very self-sufficient. But she gives him her hands, and she follows his lead when he tugs gently, pulling her forward until her feet are off the bottom and she’s being towed along as he walks backwards. She’s more than strong enough to hold her head out of the water.

“Kick your feet a little,” Poe encourages her, and she glares at him but she _does_ , and the splashes are cold when they hit his cheeks. “Good. Now, take a deep breath and put your head down, face in the water. Just for a moment.”

“If this is a prank, I will _end_ you,” Rey mutters, but she takes a deep breath, clamps her lips and eyes shut, and ducks her head down. She comes up ten seconds later, sputtering a little. “Why did I have to do that?”

“Because you’ll swim better with your head down,” Poe says. “Nice kicking, by the way. Next time, try blowing bubbles while your face is in the water.”

“You are _disgustingly_ cheerful,” Rey grumbles. “Keep going.” And she puts her head back down.

After a few more minutes, Poe’s shoulders are starting to ache, so he tugs Rey up to stand. Her hair is coming loose, and she looks little like a wet cat – irritated and bedraggled – but Poe knows better than to laugh.

“What’s after kicking and blowing bubbles?” she demands.

“Pulling,” Poe says, and moves behind her to guide her arm: reach and _scoop_ and reach back, reach and _scoop_ and reach back. “You’re pulling the water past you,” he explains.

“Got it,” Rey says, and sort of flops down into the water. After a minute, Poe reaches down and pulls her back out. She sputters and glares at him.

“Floating,” Poe says. “Knew I forgot something.”

On shore, Finn muffles a laugh into the towel he’s using as a lounging-blanket. Rey turns her glare on him. “Just wait till our next sparring session,” she threatens. Finn holds his hands up and gives her a pleading wide-eyed look, and she sigh. “ _Or_ be adorable,” she grumbles.

“Oh good, the puppy eyes work on you too, I’m not alone,” Poe says, and grins when Rey starts swearing under her breath. She’s got an impressive vocabulary for someone so young. “Right – floating,” he adds when she winds down. “Lie back – I’ll keep you up.”

He’s actually very flattered when she does exactly as he says without hesitation. She is warm and not terribly heavy, and much too tense. “Relax,” he says. “I’ve got you – and you’ll float better.”

It takes a few minutes. Poe stands there and watches the clouds and waits. Finally, Rey sighs and relaxes. “ _There_ we go,” Poe says triumphantly. “I’m going to take my hands away. Don’t tense up – you’ll sink.”

Rey can’t glare properly while trying to stay relaxed, but she tries. Poe moves away, slowly. For a few seconds, Rey floats atop the water, perfectly at ease; and then she tenses, sinks, and manages to get her feet on the bottom and stand up before Poe can get to her.

“Again,” she says. “I almost had it.”

“…You don’t actually know how to be bad at something, do you?” Poe asks as she leans back into the water again, his hands under her back.

“No,” she says, irritated. “Now be quiet, I’m concentrating.”

*

Finn’s puppy eyes coax them out of the water a few minutes later for lunch and sunbathing and cuddling, which puts Rey in a distinctly better mood for the afternoon’s lessons.

“C’mon, wading in just makes it take longer,” Poe tells her as she dips her toes back in the water, and goes past her in three long strides that turn into a dive. He surfaces to see her imitating him, and braces himself to catch her if she starts to flounder, but she comes up with a gasp and a grin.

“You didn’t tell me it was like _flying_ ,” she accuses him. Poe grins.

“If you do it right, it is,” he says.

“Show me that stroke again,” she demands. Poe does.

*

It takes more than a day for Rey to really learn to swim, but she’s dogged in her determination: every rest day finds the three of them at the lakeshore, with Rey spending hours in the water, until her fingers are pruny and her hair is a tangled mess.

Poe doesn’t mind for two reasons. The first is that it’s very pleasant to see Rey getting steadily better at swimming – and she improves rapidly, until she can swim as fast as Poe can and hold her breath underwater for longer – and to see her triumph when she masters a new stroke or a backflip or a racing dive. The second is that the evenings, with them all sitting on the blanket basking in the last rays of the sun and Finn carefully combing out Rey’s hair into a shining glossy sheet and Poe himself lying back with his head in Rey’s lap and her fingers tangled in his hair while BB-8 trundles in circles around them, all of them telling stories or sharing anecdotes from the week past – those evenings are as close as Poe has ever really come to perfect contentment.

On the last rest day before the base is moved to a new location - the Resistance tries not to stay in any one place more than a year, for safety's sake - Rey manages to coax Finn into the water, and he stands chest-deep in the lake and laughs at them as they play around him like otters. Rey takes an infectious delight in spending her time underwater, diving to pick up rocks from the bottom or tug on Poe's ankles, and he chases her - or she chases him - in circles around Finn, pausing sometimes to hang panting from Finn's shoulders and make faces at each other and laugh.

And they've all been dancing around this for a while - Poe because they're young and innocent and he won't pressure them into anything, Rey because she's busy becoming a Jedi and learning to interact with people who care about her, Finn because he's been finding his feet as a valued member of the Resistance instead of an interchangeable Stormtrooper - but today, today there's no tension left between them, nothing but joy and laughter. And so it seems like the simplest thing in the galaxy, the obvious conclusion of the dance they've been doing, when Rey surfaces in front of Finn and grins up into his face and presses her lips to his, turns in his arms to tug Poe close and kisses him as well, leans back and watches in satisfaction as Finn reels Poe in to claim his own first kiss.

From the shore, BB-8 observes that it has taken them long enough, and Rey dissolves in giggles and has to cling to Finn to keep herself from going under. Poe knocks his head gently against Finn's shoulder and sighs. Finn, who's been learning binary, whistles a rude retort at BB-8 and then joins Rey in laughter.

"You know, I think Snap's been taking bets on us," Poe says, and Finn laughs so hard he loses his footing, and they all come stumbling out of the water onto the bank leaning on each other and sputtering and grinning like fools.

It’s a good day.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Like Flying](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7031125) by [Hananobira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hananobira/pseuds/Hananobira)




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